Doubts on US-led alternative to Kyoto

AN AMERICAN-led plan to rely on new technologies to tackle global warming was launched yesterday amid claims it is a "Machiavellian pact" to undermine the Kyoto agreement on climate change.

The partnership deal with five other countries, Australia, China, India, South Korea and Japan, focuses on the promotion of replacements for fossil fuels, such as clean coal, nuclear, wind and solar power, but sets no targets for the reduction of emissions.

The UK government welcomed the move and some environmentalists said the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate was a step in the right direction.

However others said it would not result in a significant reduction in emissions and would detract from the emission reduction targets in the Kyoto agreement, which the US and Australia have refused to sign.

The White House insisted the partnership was not meant to be an alternative climate change deal, but John Howard, the Australian prime minister, invited comparisons by saying the agreement was "superior to the Kyoto Protocol".

Robert Zoellick, the US deputy Secretary of State, said: "We are not detracting from Kyoto in any way at all. Our goal is to complement other treaties with practical solutions to problems."

The six countries, which account for nearly half the world's greenhouse emissions, said the pact would "seek to address energy, climate change and air pollution issues within a paradigm of economic development".

A fact sheet issued by the White House said the countries "will focus on voluntary practical measures ... to create new investment opportunities, build local capacity, and remove barriers to the introduction of clean, more efficient technologies. This partnership will help each country meet nationally designed strategies for improving energy security, reducing pollution, and addressing the long-term challenge of climate change."

It added that ending extreme poverty would help the environment.

The US and Australia are the only developed nations outside the Kyoto agreement, which demands cuts in greenhouse emissions to 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

Elliot Morley, the UK environment minister, gave the initiative a cautious welcome. He said: "The fact that people are working together, which is very much in line with the agreement at Gleneagles [the recent G8 summit] in relation to the action plan on sharing technologies and looking at issues like carbon capture, I think that is a welcome step forward."

The British government's chief scientist, Sir David King, said it was important to focus on technological change, but he stressed that a cap on individual countries' emissions was required to make meaningful progress.

Catherine Pearce, an international climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth said: "It looks suspiciously as though this deal will mean business as usual for the United States. This is yet another attempt by the US and Australian administrations to undermine the efforts of the 140 countries who have signed the Kyoto Protocol."

Clive Hamilton, the director of the Australia Institute Research Centre, said: "The main beneficiaries will be Australian coal companies, some of the world's biggest greenhouse polluters. It's a Machiavellian pact."

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.